


A Rocky Start

by General_Button



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Courtship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Shendak Spring Fling 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23922442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/General_Button/pseuds/General_Button
Summary: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”Shiro didn’t meant to say it out loud. It had just…slipped out.Since Voltron and the Blades of Marmora had started working together, their forces often intermingled during missions depending on the context. Anything that had to do with intel or subterfuge was often accompanied by a Blade. Shiro was no stranger to many of the Blade members since they worked so closely so often with the paladins, but this was a new experience for Shiro.Sendak, former commander of the Galra Empire and the guy that had tried to kill all of them—twice!—stood in front of Shiro, his eyebrow raised. As if he had any reason to have doubts.
Relationships: Sendak/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 117
Collections: Shendak Spring Fling





	A Rocky Start

**Author's Note:**

> Hey… So it's been a minute. Carpal tunnel kicked my ass for a long time but I'm trying to get back into things. It's slow going lol here have this piece for my spring fling partner Gem! The prompt was a heist, but it became more about feelings and Sendak being a weirdo as is my MO.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Shiro didn’t meant to say it out loud. It had just…slipped out.

Since Voltron and the Blades of Marmora had started working together, their forces often intermingled during missions depending on the context. Anything that had to do with intel or subterfuge was often accompanied by a Blade. Shiro was no stranger to many of the Blade members since they worked so closely so often with the paladins, but _this_ was a new experience for Shiro.

Sendak, former commander of the Galra Empire and the guy that had tried to kill all of them—twice!—stood in front of Shiro, his eyebrow raised. As if _he_ had any reason to have doubts.

“Is everything all right?”

And there it was. The one thing Shiro couldn’t _stand_ about Sendak. Sendak had changed; that much Shiro was aware of. Yet somehow, despite all odds, every time that they spoke, Sendak looked and talked to him like _that._ Like he couldn’t wait to tear into Shiro about something or other, each word laced with sarcasm.

“Everything is just fine,” Shiro chirped, plastering a smile on his face. This was going to be a new experience, but not one he couldn't handle. “Have we been briefed? Regris mentioned there were a few things we needed to discuss about the item we’re trying to find.”

“Yes,” Sendak replied, and said nothing else.

Shiro waited. Sendak scratched the back of his neck, looking at Shiro blankly.

“And those things are…?”

“Regris will be here any moment now.”

“Great,” Shiro said, relieved he didn’t have to talk with Sendak any longer, and angry Sendak hadn’t just said that. “Awesome.”

They stood in awkward silence until Regris came in, adorned in his suit and ready. Shiro resisted the urge to sigh in outright relief and stood at attention, angling himself _just_ so that Sendak was out of his peripheral.

It wasn’t that he hated Sendak. Far from it. Sure, Shiro had every reason to hold the world against him, but he understood the Empire from a very personal standpoint and he couldn’t blame Sendak for previously struggling to release its hold.

“Wow…that’s a blue planet,” he remarked. They had just jumped to the destination galaxy, revealing dozens of blue planets like the one they were looking at, though none as impressive.

“Incredibly astute observation.”

 _You don’t hate him,_ Shiro reminded himself.

Every time they were together, it was like whatever polite, reformed version of Sendak that he reserved for everyone else dissipated and Shiro was left with version 1.0.

“What is your problem?” Shiro snapped, turning to face Sendak head on. He’d been avoiding it all day, despite Sendak’s best attempts to intimidate him by standing near him and practically hovering over his shoulder. Shiro swore he could smell his breath sometimes with how close he stood.

In fact, he was doing it now. Shiro had to crane his neck to look at Sendak, who made no attempts to relocate somewhere further away.

_What the hell._

“Nothing,” Sendak replied evenly. Shiro breathed through his nose.

“Okay, well could you please not stand so close to me? I get claustrophobic,” he lied, hoping the excuse would be enough.

“There is not a lot of space on this ship,” Sendak pointed out, ignoring the several yards of free ship right behind him.

Shiro ground his teeth together, but somehow kept his composure. It was only him that Sendak treated like this. Nobody else—not any of the Blades nor any of the paladins—could make him feel so frustrated and on edge.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Shiro announced, squeezing past Sendak and making his way towards the back of the ship. He didn’t return until they’d reached the planet, but by then Sendak had vacated the area, hopefully to find someone else’s mood to sabotage.

* * *

Despite the tension that never ceased to dissipate when Sendak and Shiro were around each other, they worked well as a team.

Maybe that was why the blades had placed them together on a mission, he mused while Sendak delivered orders over the comms. They were tracking down a new form of quintessence that was in development for the Empire, so Shiro wasn’t entirely sure what his purpose in the mission was. Still, if they could source the quintessence and stop its production early—or at least delay it—it would be a win for all of them.

“On my way,” Shiro told them over comms, calm despite the enemy soldier feet from his path. He lifted his gun and aimed. “Just have to take this one out. What’s your status? Have you found it?”

 _“Negative,”_ Sendak replied. _“It’s not here.”_

Shiro sucked in air through his teeth and shot the bot straight through the chest. It didn’t have a heart, but it still felt good.

* * *

After the mission was over and they failed to locate the factory, he assumed they would replace him with someone more qualified for this kind of mission.

Instead, he found himself standing on the ship again, headed to a new location. With Sendak.

Since the last mission had gone well, Shiro was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. Under pressure he was a good soldier, and from what Shiro had personally experienced, his skills as a tactician were lethal.

Then the first that was out of Sendak’s mouth when Shiro walked through the door was, “You’re late.”

“I was in a meeting,” he said slowly, focusing on enunciating his words so he wouldn’t want to strangle Sendak. “I wasn’t aware we were on a time limit. I let Regris know.”

Sendak huffed and said nothing. Then he crossed his arms and still said nothing. They stood there awkwardly, just like the first time they’d met for this mission, only this time it wasn’t as awkward as Shiro thought it could’ve been. Maybe because Sendak looked a little like a child that had been scolded, irritated for reasons Shiro couldn’t understand yet somehow found amusing.

 _He’s a little testy sometimes, but maybe he’s not so bad in the right light,_ Shiro thought, trying to remember that when Sendak shifted a little too close.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Shiro announced, his heart thumping.

* * *

The second mission brought them closer, but they still didn’t find anything. It went as well as the first, and Sendak seemed even more at ease this time around. It was fine—great, even, but Shiro didn’t understand why Sendak couldn’t be so calm all the time. As soon as the mission ended and they were no longer focused on more important things, he would fall back to acting like an ass.

For one, if they stopped at any point to eat, for some reason Sendak wouldn’t let him get his own food. He _brought_ it to him, like he was a child waiting for his parent’s help because he couldn’t reach the counter. And if Shiro rejected the meal he brought (“Sendak, I can’t digest this. _”_ ) Sendak got all up in a huff about it.

“I don’t get what his problem is,” Shiro told one of the Blades sitting by. Usually he didn’t like small talk during a mission—Galra weren’t very good it at any rate—but he couldn’t stand the way Sendak was acting. “So what if I don’t want his beans? I have my own beans! I don’t need any more.”

The Galra looked down at his plate like he’d suddenly found something interesting lying in his identical pile of space-beans, ignoring Shiro completely.

Shiro sighed and shoveled more beans in his mouth.

* * *

“There are three bathrooms on either side.”

Shiro chewed on the edge of his stylus. It took him a few seconds to realize Sendak had addressed him.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Over time, their uneasy, awkward silences had become comfortable. Conversation flowed, stilted at first, but it flowed. Sendak had a lot of interest things to say when he wasn't so focused on how others perceived him, and they _did_ work well as a team. Shiro could say he didn't completely mind being around him anymore.

“There are several bathrooms,” Sendak repeated, enunciating each word clearly. He pointed at the bathrooms in question on the floorplan that the Blades had laid out. They were planning on building a new base, and wanted Shiro’s input. Apparently. Despite not being an architect, nor having any experience in any kind of engineering.

Lately, they’d been asking for his advice on a lot of things he wasn’t qualified for. 

At Shiro’s silence, Sendak scrunched his face up in a particular way, which Shiro had begin to realize was his way of rolling his eyes, and moved around the table to sit directly next to him. Their thighs touched.

Letting it happen was Shiro’s only choice, because…what else was he supposed to do?

Sendak leaned in close, once again pointing out that there were _numerous_ bathrooms included in the floorplan, and Shiro tried not to get distracted the subtle, musky smell that drifted off of Sendak when he was this close. It smelled kind of…nice.

“Well?”

Craning his neck, Shiro met Sendak’s eyes, trying to remember what he’d been saying.

“Sounds…good. Sounds great.”

“This is where my room will be located. Sources of food will not be far, should you visit.”

“Oh,” Shiro said. Finally it dawned on him. The excuse—bathrooms— _oh._

“You…want me to visit? Is that what you’re asking?” He hadn’t meant for it to come out teasing, but it had, and Sendak looked at him blankly in a way that Shiro inexplicably knew meant he was embarrassed.

“If you like.”

“Maybe,” Shiro said, taking the blueprints from him and laying them out over his pad. “Since there are so many…bathrooms.”

He resisted the urge to laugh, but the smile wouldn’t leave his face. Sendak did his approximation of a smile and shuffled a little closer, subtle in the way that he usually was and nearly sent Shiro’s drink cascading over the worktable.

“Is that new cologne?” Shiro asked, reflexes kicking in. “Smells nice.”

Had he the presence of mind to do so, he would’ve seen the way Sendak perked up with obvious delight, but he was still staring at the blueprints.

* * *

This was going to be their last mission. It had been a long time coming—the Empire had been evading them at every turn, but finally, _finally_.

“Can’t wait to be done with all this,” Shiro said on the way to the main deck. “Our last briefing. We’ve been briefed enough that I could probably repeat parts of it back word-for-word.”

“I’m certain Kolivan would enjoy that,” Sendak replied, deadpan. Shiro smiled up at him.

They were walking to the briefing room together, with Sendak riding a little too close for comfort. Their hands brushed every so often, but Sendak didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything, so Shiro felt weird about bringing attention to it. Based on how Sendak preferred a close proximity, he didn’t want to offend him either.

“So,” he said, dragging the syllable out, “this is it. This is the last time we have to meet here. I’ll be honest, when we first met I wasn’t so keen. But maybe you’re not so bad.”

He knocked the back of his hand purposefully against Sendak’s, who reacted only with a slight twitch of his ears. Shiro didn’t want to say he’d miss him, but… Well.

Being around Sendak could be refreshing. It was weird, not playing leader, but he could get used to it.

When they reached the entrance, Shiro went in first, closely followed by Sendak. They were briefed about the location, which was an underground facility located on a long-abandoned planet. It explained why their efforts to locate it had been met with greater resistance and false leads. With a substance like this, prone to being explosive and toxic, being in an underground facility that would have difficulty venting and toxic fumes seemed counterintuitive, but that was exactly why it was so smart.

“For this mission, we're only sending two agents,” Kolivan said, glancing around the room. “Shiro. Sendak.”

* * *

“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Shiro joked as they squeezed their way through what seemed like the smallest cavern he had ever been in. There were networks of fresh springs that ran throughout the planet’s many caverns, and data from the Blades surveillance had located one that led directly to the facility.

Water dripped on either side of them, which made it difficult to travel far quickly. Each time he took a single step, he had to make sure he didn’t slip. Sendak didn’t seem to be faring much better; coming in at just about twice Shiro’s weight and generally being bigger, he looked like he was struggling just to breathe.

“Wouldn’t Regris have been a better pick?” Shiro continued, at Sendak’s silence. Half the reason they had taken this route was because most Galra couldn’t fit through tight spaces except for ones like Regris. “He’s pretty skinny compared to the rest of you—ugh!”

He sputtered as water sluiced down over his head from above. His hands shot out blindly into nearly slipped, managing to grip the rock face just-in-time.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes," Shiro replied unsteadily. "Man, I know this isn’t toxic waste water, but it sure smells like it.”

“It reminds me of home,” Sendak remarked, and Shiro couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said, pushing further in. The only light source came from the flashlights installed in their suits and the flashlight on Shiro’s bayard. All in all, it was pretty dark and miserable.

After what felt like about an hour, they finally reached a section of the cavern that connected to a large metal wall. Shiro pressed his hands against the metal and listened, trying to see if he could hear anyone on the other side. When it seemed like the coast was clear, he pulled out his bayard and the device they were given and got to work.

Getting in wasn’t difficult. They done things like this a thousand times.

“Got the information we need?” he asked Sendak. Destroying the local servers and all of their test equipment was the most satisfying thing Shiro had done all week. If there Intel was correct, this facility was cut off from the rest of the Empire to protect the information. If so, this would set them back quite a bit.

“Yes,” Sendak said, his voice tight with tension. Sometimes Shiro forgot he used to be part of this. He wondered if he was feeling any sense of regret, knowing what it was like to be in the position of someone losing valuable piece of your database. “Let’s leave.”

Again, it wasn't that getting in was a problem, getting out was what worried them. Their only safe exit was the caverns, unless they wanted to fight an army of robots. By this time, the Galra had noticed the giant hole in their ship. Having prepared for this, they had several routes of escape. The closest was the obvious choice, if not for the structural instability of the cavernous section. They would need to go further they wanted to get out without any risks.

“We might be able to fight our way through, but I’d rather avoid it if we can,” Shiro said, peeking around a corner where a few bots were already gathering. “Shit, there are a lot of them. What do you think?”

When he looked over, he had to stop his heart from leaping into his throat. Sendak was much closer than necessary, practically looming over him and ignoring the perfectly good amount of space between Shiro and the door that he could have used to look out.

“I say we take the nearby caverns,” Shiro said quietly. “It think it’ll hold.”

“And if the cavernous rocks fall upon us?” Sendak challenged.

“Unless someone causes an earthquake, it should hold. They won’t even know we were here if we’re fast. I just think—” He couldn’t really think with Sendak so _close._ And why did he have to smell like that? “I think we should go now.”

“Fine. Then we must hurry.”

Where they were, far from their original entrance, things were quiet. There were only a few bots that they disposed on quickly. They reached the exit point, and Shiro lasered another hole through their hull. As they descended quickly into the space, it almost seemed like they might be getting away with it scot-free.

Sendak lead the way this time, with much more grace than Shiro had. He didn’t slip even once.

“Can you see in the dark?” he asked at length, ducking under one of the metal rails jutting across their path. This cavern was much wider than the last. There were dozens of these beams, probably to provide some sort of stability that had been missing. The earth seemed softer in this section.

“Yes,” Sendak replied.

Shiro could have left it there and focused on the mission at hand, but his thoughts were turning in strange and dangerous directions while staring at the length of Sendak’s broad shoulders and back.

“Then why do you have a flashlight on in front of you? Doesn’t that make it worse?”

“It is not for my sake, but yours,” Sendak clarified.

“Ah,” Shiro replied. His face felt hot, which was weird because using a flashlight for the sake of someone who could not see in the dark was a completely normal thing that teammates did.

_Teammates? Is that what we are?_

Shiro swallowed. He opened his mouth.

Suddenly, the walls started to vibrate.

“What’s that?” Shiro said, his voice shockingly loud. Sendak swore. The walls continued to shake, going on for a minute or so before it stopped. “That’s from an explosion,” he realized out loud.

“Our escape plan was hardly a secret at this point,” Sendak mused. “Perhaps we should have gone the other way.”

“Maybe,” Shiro said, not yet willing to admit he’d been wrong, not if they were about to be in big trouble. “Let’s keep going, it’s not too far ahead.”

They moved faster, and awkward job through the dark that would have been hilarious if not for the constant rumbling echoing around them. Shiro kept his eyes glued to Sendak’s back, focusing on that instead of their impending doom.

He was so focused that he wasn’t paying attention to the ground and tripped over a rock lying in their path. At the same time, one of the beams directly above him gave a terrible groan as a rock the size of a boulder fell from above and landed on it, dislodging it and sending it sliding down the wall towards Shiro. It came to an uncertain stop a few seconds later, caught on the edge of an outcropping. The fresh spring water cascading down different parts of the cavern rushed across the edges of the beam and splattered to the ground next to Shiro.

Despite the danger, despite the echo of Sendak’s voice now echoing around him, his eyes remained locked on the beam.

 _You ever just freeze up_? Lance had asked him once on their way to the training room. _Sometimes, when the bad guys are coming at me, it’s like my whole body stops working. I just freeze, and I can’t move even though I know I should move. That ever happen to you?_

Sometimes, he had answered, remembering his early days in the arena. With each foe they threw at him, Shiro had always started off paralyzed, too afraid to even move.

 _Yes,_ Shiro thought now, remembering that moment in the split second he had to think.

The beam groaned again, sliding even lower.

“Shiro, move!” Sendak shouted. Shiro’s limbs unlocked and he burst into motion, but he had to scramble up onto his feet and there wasn’t enough time to get out of the way. A large weight slammed into him, sending him headfirst into the nearest surface. Thankfully, he was wearing his helmet and even though the impact left him a little dizzy, he was otherwise okay. There was just a deep scratch on the front of his helmet.

“Shit,” he swore, “I think I might’ve twisted my ankle. Damn it.” Twist or no twist, it would hold. They had a job to do. He glanced up at Sendak.

“Are you okay? Did you hurt anything?”

Sendak grunted from his position on the ground. He was sprawled next to Shiro in an ungainly manner, but he didn’t appear hurt.

Shiro managed to get himself to his feet and then reached to help Sendak to his feet, who waved him away.

Not long after they finished ensuring they were both alive and mostly unhurt. A cacophony of voices sounded from the opposite end of the tunnel. The was a scuffling sound, like some kind of animal was tearing their way towards them. Shiro swore and looked around again for anything, _anything_ that could help them.

Then, as if by magic, another boulder from above came crashing down, sliding and knocking down rubble and clouds of dust. With nowhere to run, Shiro and Sendak flattened themselves against the wall, but the rock landed a hairsbreadth away from them, off by just a few feet.

Coincidentally, it blocked the path directly between them and their pursuers. Unfortunately, the beam and the _other_ boulder was blocking their way out.

“What are the chances,” Shiro breathed. “Holy crow, that was close. Are you okay?”

Sendak was breathing hard, but otherwise he seemed fine. They were close—Sendak was inches away, his chestplate nearly touching Shiro’s helmet. He stared at Shiro for a few moments without saying anything, then nodded quickly. The dust was still settling, so it was difficult to see clearly, but as far as they could tell, they were trapped. Unless they could climb over one very tall boulder.

“We will need to find a way around—or through,” Sendak confirmed, his voice a quiet and low rumble. He was _very_ close. Shiro shivered inexplicably.

“I shouldn’t have chosen to go this way. We might be home already if we’d taken on the fight.”

“You cannot know that.” Sendak raised his arm and braced it above Shiro. He was still breathing heavily. A sound like a groan escaped him. “I had hoped to court you…properly once this was over,” Sendak continued. “I had not had a chance to mark you with my scent—”

“I’m sorry, what?” Shiro said. He might have shouted it.

The sound of a laser beam interrupted Sendak’s reply. They stepped away from the boulder that was beginning to show signs of smoke and sprinted to the other side.

“I can use my bayard to get through, and you’ve got your—big metal arm.” Shiro gestured to it. Sendak blinked. “But that might be too slow. Climbing will be faster. If you can make a few handholds I can follow behind you.”

“I can carry you,” Sendak said seriously. He was staring at the foot Shiro was favoring. 

“That’s not necessary,” Shiro barked. He felt off-kilter. “I’ll follow behind.” He glanced behind them again. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Sendak’s prosthetic arm was bigger than his other arm, but when it was lying unused it didn’t seem nearly as intimidating. He lifted it and smashed it into the boulder, creating jagged divots that would suit as handholds for Shiro’s—much smaller—limbs. Then he leapt up the boulder and did it again, then pushed himself upward and did it again. Shiro kept up the pace, hand over hand, his mind blank. Thinking about taking his next step was much more important than wondering how Sendak felt about him, and if he meant that thing about courting.

Sendak was an alien. He was big, intimidating, and he’d tried to kill them more than once. But he was also loyal, committed, strong, muscular, and surprisingly gentle when the situation called for it.

He glanced up to see how far Sendak was and ended up getting a facefull of his ass flexing in his bodysuit. Shiro had seen that ass enough times to know what it looked like, but this time was different. Everything was suddenly different.

On his next step, Shiro wasn’t looking, and his bad foot slipped. For a moment, it felt like he was about to go plummeting down and break his leg—or worse—when a hand shot out and held him in place.

“Let me carry you.”

“Not a chance,” Shiro replied, but he shot him a grateful, yet strained smile. Sendak did not respond other than to raise the tips of his ears at a presumably invisible sound.

They made it over the boulder and down with relative ease. Sendak had helped Shiro down the last few feet, which Shiro would have liked to protest, but his foot was really starting to hurt. Then they were off, and they made it into space without having to take on another fight. In the end, those stupid little caverns had helped them out. A mission successful.

They rode back in silence. Shiro felt drained by the whole thing, not to mention the revelation that apparently there had been meaning to Sendak’s various gestures throughout their time together, but Sendak remained quiet. Shiro didn’t have the headspace to parse it until later, well after the briefing and after they turned over the data.

“You did well,” Regris told him from his position above. Shiro was getting prepped to go into a healing pod, which would hasten the healing on his ankle. “Far better than I had expected. And not just today; you’ve proven yourself an admirable spy, Shiro.”

“Thanks. Where's Sendak?"

"In another room. He sustain injury on his back and shoulders."

"He did?" Shiro asked, surprised. Shiro had noticed he seemed out of breath and lethargic near the end, but he hadn't realized. Sendak hadn't told him.

Refusing to think about the potential reasoning behind that, Shiro finished tugging the suit over his legs and looked up at Regris. “Regris, why _did_ you bring me on? I still don’t really understand how I was more qualified than anyone else. I may pilot the black lion, but I’m not very suited to subterfuge.”

Regris hummed. His tail swayed gently behind. “Many of us were preoccupied, and I requested an additional agent for this mission. I did not ask for you. Sendak assured us you were the best fit. We had no reason to doubt his decision at the time.”

“Sendak-he requested me?"" Shiro asked. "You mean from the beginning?"

"Yes," Regris said with a nod.

Shiro looked down at his injured foot.

“Did he say why?"

At that, Regris became unexpectedly tight-lipped. Afterwards, he excused himself from the conversation and left Shiro with far more questions than he had answers.

* * *

There was a lot on Shiro's mind. A lot that he didn't understand, and wasn't sure he was ready to. But it didn’t help that after their successful mission, Sendak began to avoid him.

They weren’t in mission mode any longer, so there was no _reason_ for them to see each other, but on the occasions he did stop by over the next few weeks, he made it a point to see if he could find him. Only, the Galra that had once made Shiro question if he was misunderstanding the meaning of personal space was nowhere to be found.

Eventually, confusion and a little bit of hurt turned to anger. Enough that it fueled him to ask Kolivan directly where he was and ended up being directed to the training center in the location that was being built for their new facility.

“Good luck,” he said as he walked away. Something in his voice told Shiro that all the Galra understood something fundamentally that he did not, and he had an inkling as to what that was.

* * *

He found him in the middle of a construction zone.

It was… Odd seeing the Galra doing mundane construction work when he had such a strong image of them in his head, commanding others to do so while standing atop a platform, but they weren’t the only ones. There were aliens of all sorts taking part, greatly hastening the process with their specific racial abilities.

Sendak was directing a few people this way and that, and in his hands he had a blueprint. He had mentioned once before that he had an interest in architecture; Shiro wondered, if the war hadn’t happened and he hadn’t become a commander, what would he have been?

“Big crowd,” Shiro drawled, walking up to his side. The construction going on around them made it difficult for Shiro to hear himself, but he knew Sendak had good hearing; he saw him stiffen, and then turn. “Building another bathroom?”

“Ah,” he said. It wasn’t _ah, hello,_ but rather _ah, you’ve found me_. “Shiro.”

“Sendak.” Shiro cocked his head. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I have been busy.”

“You weren’t too busy before when you were—what did you say?—courting me?”

Shiro wasn't sure what he'd wanted to say to him when he saw him, but it turned out his mouth had other ideas. Sendak gripped the blueprints tightly between his fingers, looking as though he was considering using it as a shield.

“My intentions were misunderstood. I had not—I thought you knew.”

“So you were courting me.” He had moved on from talking to shouting as a piece of machinery next to them roared to a start. Sendak glanced at in in disdain, and then pulled Shiro off to the side, into a near by room away from the noise.

“As I said,” Sendak said the moment they had space to talk, “the situation was…misunderstood.”

“By you all or by me?”

The blueprints crumpled louder. “Both. I had assumed—you did not reject my advances. Your little green friend confirmed you understood.”

“Little green—?” Did he mean Pidge? “What did they say exactly?”

“When I inquired whether or not you would be receptive to Galra courtship, she answered, ‘oh, yeah, he’ll definitely be into that.’”

Hearing Sendak mimic Pidge’s vernacular was weird. Hearing that he’d even spoken to her about it was even weirder. Sometimes Shiro forgot that sarcasm was a little harder for the Galra to detect.

“So this whole time, you hanging so close to me and all that weird behavior, all that was…courtship?”

The paper began to rip. Sendak swore softly and then set it down beside him.

“You are not receptive.”

“I didn’t say that. You have a habit of assuming things about people before they’ve had a chance to tell you.”

“There is no point dwelling on what I already know. I made a grave mistake.”

“So, what, courting me was a mistake?” Shiro was joking, but Sendak looked gravely, deeply offended by the notion.

“No,” he practically growled. “You are the picture of a perfect mate. Others saw what I did, and I knew that if I did not make my intentions known, eventually someone else would.”

“I…am? That’s hard to believe. I’m a broken human soldier with PTSD.”

“That is a lie,” Sendak snapped with surprising vitrol. “Whoever told you such a thing was only attempting to tear you down. You are an _obvious_ catch.”

A _catch?_ Had he also learned that term from Pidge? What else had he been talking to the paladins about? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Okay. So,” Shiro began, shelving that away for a later date, “what about the way you kept talking to me before? I mean—I wasn’t the only one to notice you treated me differently. Remember: 'astute observation', 'you're really thinking outside the box this time', 'did you forget your human scent-mask?' Was all that before or after you decided to court me?”

Sendak’s face did something very complicated, eventually settling on what appeared to be embarrassment. The tips of his ears pointed down.

“I was trying to be…nice. They were intended as genuine compliments." He shrugged his shoulders. "Clearly I was unsuccessful.”

Shiro opened his mouth. Closed it. In retrospect, with someone as human-emotionally inept as Sendak, he could see how that might have happened. And now he felt a little mean.

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Okay. So basically, this whole time you had me brought in for this mission just to flirt with me?”

"Hardly. Courtship is not just mere _flirting."_

"But you did ask for me specifically. Regris said I came in your recommendation."

"That is...correct,"

They stood there in incredibly awkward silence for a while as construction around them kept on going. Now that he’d parsed through some of Sendak’s feelings and gotten an idea of the bigger picture he felt—confused. His face felt warm.

“I guess if I think about it, I’m not…opposed,” he said, at length, without really giving himself time to actually think about it.

Sendak blinked at him.

“I mean—” Shiro’s face got warmer. “I would have liked to have known that the courting was happening, but I didn’t actually _necessarily_ really mind. I just thought it was your thing.”

“Not minding is not the same thing as wanting,” Sendak said evenly. Shiro flinched.

“I know. I’m just not used to people being interested in me romantically. Assuming being a mate implies there’s a romantic element.”

“Yes,” Sendak confirmed, his voice pitching low.

Shiro swallowed, shifting on his feet. For all he pretending he was _just okay_ with everything, a normal person didn’t just let someone court them without realizing it. Normal people didn’t consider taking up with big furry purple aliens that had tried to kill them. Twice, he reminded himself.

“So what’s the next step?”

Sendak cocked his head.

“The next step of courting,” Shiro clarified, trying to play it cool even though his face was still burning hot. “You said you wanted to do it properly once it was over. You mentioned something about scent?”

Sendak’s throat made a funny sound. He cleared it. “The next step is to scent mark you to stake my claim. I have been attuning our scents nearly a phoeb now, but with your consent I would mark you with my scent.”

“Do we have to be naked?” Shiro asked calmly, even though his heart was still pounding.

“No. We could even do it now.”

Was it Shiro’s imagination or did he sound excited?

“Okay,” Shiro said, against his better judgement. “Do it.”

Sendak frowned. “I need your consent.”

“I just gave it to you.”

“No—I need to hear the words. I need you to _ask.”_

_You’ve got to be kidding me_

Shiro could have expressed his doubts, but he didn’t want to insult Sendak’s culture. If that was what he had to do, that was what he had to do.

“Okay. Sure. I can ask.” He bit his lip. Sendak stared, the plain hope lighting up his face almost making Shiro want to reconsider relocating just so he be the receiver of that look a little longer. “Sendak, will you scent—,” he stammered a little over the word, but it didn’t seem to matter. Sendak was already moving, and Shiro’s feet moved on their own to meet him. “Will you scent mark me?”

The first thing Sendak did was shift into a crouch. This surprised Shiro; he thought he might go for his neck.

He took Shiro’s hand in his, and after carefully examining it and finding the point where his pulse was strongest—right under his wrist—he gingerly lifted it and stroked his cheek across his skin. His fur wasn’t the rough texture that Shiro had expected. It was soft. His hand twitched, and he had to resist the urge to brush his fingers through the short tufts and instead let Sendak do his thing.

He spent a minute or so brushing his cheek across Shiro’s arm and his forearm, and then he swapped to the other arm. The moment held an intimacy Shiro hadn’t expected. Sendak’s gentleness, and the blissful expression on his face brought with it a certain kind of understanding.

Without dislodging Sendak’s hold, Shiro gingerly dropped to his knees and took Sendak’s other hand.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “I should have said this before, but I...I like you.” His words hung in the air while Sendak gazed at him. “This whole mating thing is very confusing to me, so you’re going to have be upfront about it with me from now on. Okay?”

“I will,” Sendak promised. He squeezed Shiro’s hand in his massive palm and gave it another firm rub with his cheek. “With this, it will be obvious that you are mine.” He looked…pleased didn’t even describe it. Predatory, more like. “And I yours.”

“So you put Sendak’s special addition cologne on my wrists. Okay. Is it more or less obvious that my scent is now rubbed all over on your face?”

"You are a human." Sendak cocked his head. “Less.”

“Yeah, probably wouldn’t matter anyway,” he admitted. “We don’t emit scents like you all do. Well, not anywhere pleasant.”

“The stronger the scent the better,” Sendak said, and somehow Shiro suspected he had an idea of what he meant. He’d always gotten particularly close-quarters after a long and sweaty mission…

“We can talk about it.” Shiro smiled, bringing his hand up to touch the side of Sendak’s face. At first he flinched, but after a few moment he relaxed into the touch. There was a scar that he could feel under the fur. Actually, there were a few.

Shiro wanted to talk about him hiding his injury—among a dozen other things—but he didn't want to ruin the moment. Even though Sendak looked a little uncomfortable.

“When was the last time someone touched you like this?” Shiro asked softly.

It was just—Sendak had changed, but that didn’t mean he was close with anyone in particular. In terms of physicality, he mostly kept to himself. Shiro hoped it wasn’t too personal of a question.

“Not for a very long time.” He paused for a moment. “I do not mind.”

“If I recall, not minding is not the same thing as wanting,” Shiro teased. He let his hand drop.

Sendak took it. “I want you to touch me, Shiro. If I did not, I would not attempt to court you.”

“I know.” His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. He closed his eyes. “I know.”

They sat there quietly for a few minutes, absorbing the reality of their situation. Two people, broken in different ways. Their situations were so similar in so many ways, something like this could almost make sense. Almost.

 _This is going to be hard,_ Shiro thought, stroking Sendak’s fingers lightly. _Very hard. For both of us._

After another moment of thoughtful silence, he stood up and offered Sendak his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this one was a little rushed and I would have liked to do more but I didn't have time to let it get big. This time I wanted Sendak to be more of a bumbling idiot type, with a hint of touch-starved Sendak. Hope you enjoyed!


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